Valentines
by BumbleLellie
Summary: Be My Valentine-won't you? Can't you be him for a moment? For a day? Pretend that you love me, that you care at all. It's alright if it's lies. I can take it, I promise. And every time you look at her, or I hear the noises you make in the next cell. I won't be jealous, I promise I won't care either. I can be nothing, for this one day let me be something, anything to you. Bethyl


**_So another small one-shot. For valentine's, cause I love you guys so much, try not to get hit with cupid's crossbow, you fall in love with TWD and start writing fan fictions….._**

Be My Valentine- wont you? Can't you be _him_ for a moment? For a day? Pretend that you love me, pretend that you care at all. It's alright if it's lies. I can take it, I promise I can and I will. And every time you look at her, or I hear the noises you make with her in the next cell. I won't be jealous, I promise I won't care either. I can be nothing, for this one day let me be something, anything to you.

She's just some floozy, all long tanned legs and bleached blonde hair. Should have thought about that shouldn't she? Should have known what would happen to her flaky fake hair when the apocalypse came. Polly. It's not even a real name, not really the kind of name you want to moan out in passion, unless I'm wrong, in which case, by all means screw Polly next door. Let her wrap her long legs around you, lie to you about who else she's been with. Everyone, except maybe Carl, but give it a year or two.

It's distracting me, making everything so much harder to do and focus. Wash the clothes, watch the baby, make food. I need to do something else to stop me thinking about this. Does he even remember what we had? It must've meant nothing at all.

Once upon a time a princess was saved by her prince. He locked her in a prison and slayed the mighty walker beasts. In a moment of high-adrenaline he gave the princess a soft kiss, awakening her from her monotonous somnambulance, making her live. A promise of happily ever after.

If only life were that simple, if only it hadn't all changed. But it had, and it was no use moping over a redneck prince when you're barely eighteen, and already treated like a petulant child for past actions. There's nothing to do but sigh, and start folding the clothes out on the line. I should feel thankful, that's all I need to feel. I have this place right, I have everything. I have a life. Am I spoilt or human? The two really are interchangeable, having the ability to breathe and restrain yourself from eating other people is basically like getting a Mercedes for your sweet sixteenth.

Daryl saw the fence break, his head was making him stand still as floods of walkers poured into the prison. The screaming from Rick got most people inside, the daylight made this the safest time for such a calamity, but still they'd probably loose someone. No, don't be so heartless, this is your family. A loss is meant to hurt you. But he was tired of losing people.

There didn't seem to be anyone left not running to the doors, he shot some arrows, taking out the nearest. About 60 walkers got in through the gate until Michonne decapitated enough for Rick to use some zip ties to reinforce the fence. We'd put more people on duty, and reinforce the fence with lumber or metal sheeting. The remaining walkers clawed at the doors, Maggie and Rick taking out their anger with small knives. Nothing fazed them, or so I thought. Then I heard Maggie scream.

He thought she was bitten, so did Rick as he turned around, searching for blood. But Maggie was struggling trying to run to a small crowd of the walkers, Rick held her back. And that's when I saw Beth Greene. She had climbed up onto a picnic table, as she was on the wrong side of the walkers to run to the open sanctuary of the prison. The walkers were leaning, pushing over themselves, as ones through the fence held her fast like some virgin sacrifice. And he felt his heart drop, and he couldn't say why. Anyone else, they would be dead, this position was seconds to death.

But seconds feel longer when you run, shooting arrows to prolong the inevitable. Maggie was still being held back by Rick, but she saw Daryl run into the throng. Part of her wanted to scream, and the other cry in gratitude. Beth wasn't worth the death of Daryl. But he somehow got there, pulled her off the table and made her run. They ran back, the outstretched arms of walkers following them, grasping at their clothing.

Daryl pulled her up the stirs of the nearest guard tower, pulling her up when she struggled to keep up with the rapid pace. Her legs shaking, she should be dead. He should have let her die. The door shut behind them, and they could see the fence bowing to the pressure, if it didn't break again it would be a wonder. They'd stay here until the surmounting pressure lessened from the end of Maggie's scream. Beth watched her sister be dragged back in behind the cold steel doors. It had been so close.

She felt Daryl hands on her checking for bites. She was ghostly pale and too dumbstruck to be embarrassed about him touching her. She felt his warm hands pull her chin up so she was looking into her eyes. His lips moved, but her blood was rushing too loudly around her head to hear. Small white spots of brilliance filtering into her vision, making her dizzy. She leant left sharply, this was up wasn't it? And he caught her, lowering her to the ground.

Her pretty pink lips trembled, and a single clear tear fell down the side of her cheek. Beth Greene was living time she didn't know she had. She was leant against Daryl, taking in the masculine smell. For some reason, cupid struck them both. A heavy kiss was started, and none knows who it was to this day. And it was hot and heated, and his hand slipped to cup her cheeks, hers into his hair scratching his scalp. They fell to the floor, grasping and kissing as if that's all they had. And for the moment it's all they did have.

Sometimes the wind outside felt like his last gently kisses against her eyelids and cheeks, and the cold clung to her like metal shavings to a magnet. Encased in a prefect imperfection. Stop thinking about him, it's been months. He's replaced you with an automaton, something that can't love him or understand. She's not a threat, you are.

And I can live without him, I can survive. It's like eating with no salt though, everything tastes blander and there's less vivacity in life. But I'm alive, I'm alive. I hold my chest to feel it beating, making sure I'm still here, and I am. I'm here.

He didn't bring it up later at the prison, acted like they had sat there for twelve hours, talking about stuff. Maggie was too busy trying to hold and fuss around Beth to notice the swollen lips and day-dream eyes. Everyone missed it, because no one noticed that Beth had been gone, except maybe Carl. But he wouldn't understand what a crush was for a year or two.

But the next day when in the shower, Beth knew it was him who pushed her against the cold tile wall. He was the one so hungrily kissing her, devilishly perverse but she wanted it. She wanted everything he had to offer. His hands slipped over her wet skin, making her back arch and small noises to escape her lips. He smirked at the squeaks, forcing more and more from her. He didn't leave until he was drenched from the spray, his jeans clinging to his obvious enjoyment as he left.

And he would come find he, and she him at every opportunity. Somewhere or maybe right at the start there was an undercurrent, but they forced it down, pretending the pull was sexual attraction instead. No one suspected a thing, who would? An eighteen year old Christian and him. So they made it months.

I walk down the hallway, going through the motions is tiring. Hopefully if I nap the thoughts will stop plaguing, the guilt-ridden dreams will wait a while to start and wake me later rather than sooner. I pull my pyjama bottoms on, and re-pull my hair out my face.

I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, then hear the tell-tale giggle of Polly in her bed. I pray to God that it's not him she's with, I can't take that today. I have no such look, with her whore-ish purrs, I hear the unmistakable grunt of Daryl Dixon. If only the prince had left me to die in my sleep. As they set a taunting rhythm I look at myself in the mirror, my wide eyes are both childish and pools to my thoughts. Maybe if I had small eyes like her then I could hid what I felt, then I'd be there on that bed with him. I wasn't unattractive, at least not less that achievably average, but beauty seemed to have no bearing with him.

He needed the softness of our passionate flames, that side of me nobody else could ever see or possess. It belonged to him, that devilish part of me, along with the angelic emotion he hated so much. The part he couldn't take the boiling news that someone cared.

Beth lay across him, she was naked but this was nothing new. His breathing was slowing down from fervent rapidity, but he didn't move. Just like the last few weeks. He began to stay, to just hold her, needing or wanting for some reason to just stroke the alabaster skin of the young Beth Greene. Her skin was taut and firm, that of teenager, but the perverse nature was inverted once he realised that that wasn't why he liked to touch it.

He got up to leave, her softness suddenly prickly entrapments of would be broken promises. He wouldn't play house anymore, not if this became the last abandonment her could take. Beth sat up at his abruptness, the satisfied bliss draining, leaving her cold and vulnerable.

''Where are you going?'' she wrapped the sheet around her, edging to the bed to look at him. He kept his head down, pulling his jeans up and buckling them. And she knew, she just knew right then. Her voice rose in panic, ''Daryl-''

''I don't love you.'' He turned around, looking at her widening eyes. There was all he needed, and he was tossing her back. She had to understand, but she could never be just the one side of Beth he could handle. Because even the sexual siren held traces of gentility that hurt his soul. She was a poisonous rose, reeling in his attentions. He had to leave before the thorn.

''What, I- I know…'' her voice was sweet and calming, like honey on a rough throat. He wanted to believe her, he was compelled to get back into bed, and Beth's didn't have thorns.

''It's just sex.'' He tried again, didn't she see she was worth more. She needed love and carefully pruning, to be shaped to grow free and tall. He couldn't do that.

''Yes, yes of course it is- anything you want. It's just sex.'' his head put that voice to her gently mewling in the covers, the memories of her simple smiles illuminating a room. She deserved more than secret fucking, and he deserved less than her willingness for his abuse.

''No, it's not, Beth I can't- I can't'' his shoulder shook, and she stood. Only in her sheet her arms held him as he cried, letting him be comforted, though she couldn't change his mind. This was what she was, open and naked, her heart was his if he wanted it. But he didn't. Instead it fell to the floor, too full of emotion for her to pick it up. She was desperate for him, but he finished his sobs and stepped away. The act physically tore him, she could read it in his face.

And she realised she repulsed him. All things she was told to give a man, they turned him off. He didn't want her compassion, but her blood was made of it.

''Don't leave me, at least say goodbye-'' the last ditch attempt. Her voice was small, Beth hardly heard herself. But the way his shoulders slumped made her know that he had heard her too. But he steeled himself, locking anything out like he learnt all those years ago. She was trapped on the outside of an unwinnable affair, being both the reason and the excuse to ignore that reason.

I'm still stood pathetically in the centre of my cell when they finish and leave to finish their jobs. They don't see me. She doesn't know why she should bother looking at me as a threat to her happy cheating, he hasn't been able to look me in the eyes for months. That tells me I cross the line of comfort still. And it helps to know he's hurting too, I want him to hurt, but I want him to be alleviated of pain too. I couldn't do this without the emotion, I'm not Polly. Not some cheap fuck when tension is high, and I'm jealous of meaning something to the man who cares about no one.

I catch his eye briefly, my face still obviously red from hearing them. Internally he knows I know, and his eyes soften somewhat. He can't change the answer for me, and neither can I am for him. So we grow apart. And he hears my last request in that last tear, and he ignores it. And I know it's over.

Be my valentine- wont you? Can't you be _him_ for a moment? For a day? Pretend that you love me, pretend that you care at all. It's alright if it's lies. And every time I look at you I won't think of what we had, from this moment on, even if you're my biggest regret. I won't be saddened, I promise I won't care either. I can be nothing, for this one day let me be something, anything to you.

**_Happy Valentines xxx_**


End file.
